Andrew Dickens: How many hours of childcare is too much?

A major new Australian study tracking more than 270,000 children has found that long hours in childcare — especially more than 40 hours a week — are linked with a higher risk of children struggling with social competence and emotional maturity by the time they reach school.  

And that makes total sense, doesn’t it? That’s because they basically go into a school system – they're being educated, they’re being taught how to read, maybe they’re being taught how to write, maybe they’re being taught maths. But are they being taught how to socially interact within a community? Something that parents are very, very good at – educators, not so much.  

The research, released by the federal Department of Education, matched childcare, health, and census data with assessments from teachers across five key developmental areas. It found that as weekly childcare hours increased beyond 30, so did the likelihood of developmental vulnerability. Children in more than 40 hours had the highest risk. 

But it’s not all one-sided. The study also found that childcare can be beneficial for language, cognitive skills, communication, and general knowledge. And for children from disadvantaged backgrounds — including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, single-parent families, and children with a language background other than English — formal childcare was associated with better outcomes across all domains. 

Quality mattered too. Children attending higher-rated centres had a lower risk of developmental vulnerability, while lower-quality care increased that risk.  

So they say you need strong, stable relationships with good educators, and they say the problem with early childcare education in Australia, and here in New Zealand, is high staff turnover. If you’re turning over your staff all the time because people get hacked off and they move on, it contributes to poor social and emotional outcomes.  

So in Australia, they’re actually expanding childcare subsidies. They realise that two income families are the norm now – that's the only way you can afford to do it. They’re looking at alternatives, they’re looking at vouchers, looking at income splitting. And they’re looking at extended parental leave so the parents can actually stay there and look after the kids for longer, rather than putting them in the care of an early childcare centre.

Advocacy groups have come out and say, well, if you’re worries about this, you can’t just reduce your hours, but what we really have to do is improve the quality.

So here’s a question for you: how do you make sure that we’ve got good early child care, quality in the sector?

The sector in Australia is under pressure – there's been abuse allegations, there’s workplace shortages. The Government says its pay rise for educators and new funding for not-for-profit centres aim to lift quality and stabilise staffing, but it ain’t working yet. 

The study reinforces that preschool remains strongly beneficial but also highlights that childcare isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, and that the quality of care, and the amount of time children spend in it, both matter. 

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